


Tomorrow Will Be Kinder

by Berytni



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gun Violence, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, Rollisi Family Fluff, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25674604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Berytni/pseuds/Berytni
Summary: Carisi was able to avoid getting shot as a cop, but when he’s targeted for his work as an ADA after winning a major case, Rollins can no longer avoid her feelings for him under pressure.
Relationships: Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr./Amanda Rollins
Comments: 14
Kudos: 111





	1. The Courthouse Steps

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had this idea that something terrible was going to happen to Carisi since he became an ADA and it would be the only way Rollins would admit her feelings. This became more romantic than I intended but I’m not mad about it. Set in the future after season 21. Enjoy!

It was one of the biggest wins of ADA Carisi’s career. If he were eight-years-old, back in Staten Island on the baseball team, he would have jumped up and cheered, but he’d become more refined since then. He smiled quietly to himself and adjusted his tie with pride knowing his contribution to the system worked to serve justice. The SVU detectives had worked the case for a long time - women being sold online by a trusted furniture e-commerce site as overpriced dressers and cabinets, and the nightmare was over. A hand reached out and molded over his shoulder.

“Congratulations, councilor.”

Detective Rollins smiled at him from behind the courtroom barricade. She had been sitting with her Lieutenant and detectives Tutuola and Tamin in the crowd. Amanda had been the first one to call him “councilor”, even when he was still a detective. She was also the most disappointed when he left, and for a while, he thought he sacrificed their complicated relationship for his career.

“The jury made the right decision.”

Always so humble. Rollins patted his shoulder once more before retrieving her arm. She’d since forgiven him and they continued to be two ships in the night, working together but never addressing what everyone knew. He was too busy now to keep pining after her as he did as a detective, but recently, it’s all she thought about.

“Are you going to make a statement to the press?” His old boss asked.

“I don’t have much else to say, but I won’t make it off those steps without one.”

“We’ll walk you out.”

“Thanks, Lieu.”

He’d also come a long way from using law school as a leg up in the interrogation room. The ADA took his briefcase and followed the SVU detectives out of the courtroom. He looked forward to celebrating with his old squad later - grab a beer, catch eyes with Amanda a couple of times, go home, and sleep soundly through the night to do it all again - but their work was far from over.

It was an overcast day in the city. The light breeze shifted the gradient of gray clouds beyond the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan. A group of awaiting press surrounded ADA Carisi on the wide concrete stairs of the New York State Supreme Courthouse. Lieutenant Benson and her squad held back at the top and observed the lone gray suit with talking hands among a sea of cameras and microphones. This was his life now. He’d gotten good at it, and knew they’d get off his back once the defendant’s attorney left the building. There was always more to be said with a loss, especially when a high profile CEO is found complicit to human trafficking.

Benson turned to Rollins. “I was thinking of picking up lunch while we’re down here.”

“Hmmm, what’cha thinking?”

“Maybe-”

**_Bang._ **

The sound echoed throughout the courthouse plaza, sending civilians to run and cover. Most of the media had disbursed except for a few hungry photographers looking for their Pulitzer moment. An assistant district attorney had just been shot.

From the top of stairs, the SVU detectives jumped into defensive stances, unsure of where the gunshot came from. Rollins reached for her gun and held it low as she shook her long bangs out of her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her old partner collapse. She almost dropped her weapon as she watched, as if in slow motion, a uniformed officer that previously held the press back, kneel to the ground.

“No,” she whispered before raising her voice with grit, “No. _No!_ Call a bus. Call a... _Carisi_.”

Benson swallowed hard as she watched her 2nd-grade detective run down the courthouse steps to the fallen ADA. She called for an ambulance, making sure they knew the victim was one of their own.

“It’s gotta be a hit,” Tutuola said, looking up at the buildings around.

“Find out. Take Tamin. Now.”

He nodded and motioned for the rookie to follow amidst the chaos.

Carisi was sprawled up the first couple steps of the courthouse and she crouched down next to him. Red seeped quickly through his suit jacket and shirt, and his face was as white as a concrete below it. The uniformed officer applied pressure to the hole in his chest, off-center to the left, close to his shoulder.

“ _Amanda?_ ” He panted, his voice cracking. “What...what’s…”

“You were shot,” she said slowly.

“O-Oh, God,” he panicked, jerking his torso and looking around frantically. He saw the blood seep from the officer’s hands, but he couldn’t feel anything. “Oh, God.”

“Hey, hey, look at me.”

His head shifted, but he continued breathing quickly, heavily with adrenaline as his heart uncomfortably raced.

“I-I’m gonna be sick.”

“No, you’re not.”

“ _‘Manda_ ,” he gasped.

She touched his face with both of her hands. “Sonny, I love you, but you gotta breathe with me here.”

He choked on one of his panicked breaths and the world got quiet. She didn’t mean to say it, but it had to come out sometime. There wasn’t time to dwell on it.

“Come on,” she coached, exaggerating her own breath. He nodded and let out a slow shaky exhale. “That’s it. Good.”

It was impossible to know where he was hit under his jacket. Under her cool exterior, she was terrified. A millimeter could be life or death and as he continued to bleed, she wished he wore a darker suit that day.

An ambulance pulled up outside the courthouse, parallel with the sidewalk. Rollins squeezed his shoulder before the paramedics pulled her aside. They cut away the top two parts of his three-piece suit. It made her uncomfortable to see him so helpless, a victim instead of a protector. Anger heated up in her chest. When a hand touched her back, she jumped.

“Amanda, I’m...sorry,” Benson said, coming around to the side of the shaken detective.

“I’m gonna kill the son of a bitch who...If he...I’ll risk losing my shield, I don’t care,” Rollins growled, taking her hand from her mouth and shaking her head.

“Trust me, don’t go there. Fin and Kat are on it. All of the NYPD is on it.”

The sentiment didn’t make her feel better. Rollins and Carisi always felt certain responsibilities towards each other, but he was a civilian now, she should have protected him.

The parametics lifted the stretcher away from the steps.

“I’m gonna…”

“Go,” the Lieutenant said. “Keep us updated.”

She touched Benson’s arm before doing a light jog along the width of the courthouse steps. She stepped right up to the stretcher next to one of the paramedics, putting her hands on the bars, and not caring if she was in the way.

“Don’t...don’t leave me again.”

“Are you coming, detective? We gotta go now.”

“Yeah,” she said, glancing up at the female paramedic with a nod before looking back at Sonny. “I’m here. I got you.”

Rollins stepped back and let the emergency personnel load him into the back of the vehicle. She’d done this before with assault victims, squeezing into the back of an ambulance, but she’d never known a gunshot victim that cooked spaghetti for her daughters. Even with all of the ugliness Amanda had seen on the job, it felt like a new level of evil. Carisi still couldn’t feel what happened to him, but he was dizzy and nauseous from the blood loss. He’d looked death in the face before - a gun to his head, pulled out of a crashed car that instantly killed another, but this was different.

His eyes stretched up at the woman working above him. “If I got any last words here...”

Rollins picked her head up. He had so much to tell her, and so much for her to take back to her daughters. Where was his phone?

“You’re stabilized, Dominick, hang in there.”

He winced. “Call me-”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Rollins nervously laughed, reaching her hand out to touch his forearm through the bars of the stretcher.

His eyes shifted to her, pupils deep into the corners as he couldn’t move his head. His brow remained furrowed, every line that came with age visible and dramatized from the harsh light of the ambulance. How didn’t they see this coming? 

“ _I’m scared_ ,” he choked, just to her.

“I know,” she quietly said, stroking the inside of his arm with her thumb and vowing to rip the throats out of anyone involved instead of admitting the same. “I...didn't think we’d ever have to do this after you left...partner.”

”I was lucky.”

Rollins traced the inner bone of his forearm with her fingertips to find and cover his hand. “Your luck’s not out, Sonny.”

The prayers in his head stopped giving him comfort, but she renewed his faith in them, for they had been answered.

When they arrived at the hospital, Rollins was forced back as they took him behind swinging double doors. She tried to scream out to him but it came out as a tired whisper. He had lost track of her in the shuffle, but the partition made him realize they weren’t together anymore.

She walked herself to the waiting room and sat down in the emptiest corner she could find. Leaning forward, she folded her arms on her thighs, letting her hair cover her face as muffled sobs came to her. Carisi once told her there was nothing she couldn’t handle, but she felt weak at the mercy of a bullet that could take him away.

She texted Liv that they made it to Belleview.

The last time she had been in a hospital waiting room as a civilian was when her father overdosed. Her dad taught her what to look for in a man, she learned what she was worth from her mom, and Sonny checked none of those boxes. That was her problem and something he worked hard for her to reconsider. At least he knew. Rollins wasn’t ready, but he finally knew. She would have never admitted she loved him otherwise, and she knew he deserved better than that, but she wasn’t better than that. His efforts were worth it and at least he could die knowing that.

Benson called her with an update on the case. The CEO had become the face of the trafficking crimes, but the organization was deep and dark. An example had to be made. The high-profile man couldn’t be tied to the hit, so Hadid made some promises she could make happen upstairs to ensure the safety of ADA Carisi. Scumbags easily turn on scumbags. Especially elite scumbags. A group of four were in custody and one of them was the gunman.

A gunman with a terrible shot. Carisi, Domnick, Jr. made it. She thought about how many times these poor doctors would be subjected to “call me Sonny” and she laughed to herself about it, knowing he was going to be okay. Rollins texted updates out while waiting to be called to see him. The squad would come by later and she assumed Hadid and the DA’s office would follow.

She lost track of the time, but it was hours from their arrival when Rollins followed a nurse through the familiar space where she had consulted victims with the man she was being taken to see. The hospital worker checked his vitals before leaving them alone. Rollins walked right up to the bed and touched the plastic siding. The color had returned to Carisi’s face. His bloody suit had been replaced with a hospital gown. Pillows were bunched up behind his left shoulder, the corresponding arm in a sling across his ribs.

“Ya shoot me, Rollins?” He sleepily asked, the anesthesia not quite out of his system.

“No, Sonny,” she flatly said, but a little amused. “Liv says someone was trying to send a message.”

“My Ma’s not gonna like that.”

She crossed her arms and rocked on her heels. “I certainly don’t.”

“Ya’kay, ‘Manda?”

“You’re something else,” she said, pulling over a chair to sit next to him. 

“Are ya?”

“I’m fine. How do you feel?”

“Tired.”

She tilted her head and sighed. She had been hospitalized three times in the last few years, two which Sonny had been around for, and he was by her side each time.

“You gave me a big scare back there.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I...it’s okay.”

“Thanks for not leaving me.”

She scoffed. “Thank you for not leaving _me_ , Dominick.”

He smiled, his head falling to the side as his eyes got heavy, “I like when ya call me that.”

Dominick was his father’s name and his parent’s love was like no other, so when Amanda called him the same, sometimes that was enough.

He went out cold from the drugs that made him feel nothing at all. How peaceful he was after such a horrific afternoon, and her chest was filled with butterflies of relief. Rollins stroked his rough cheek, but it wasn’t enough. She sighed and stood up enough to lean forward and kiss the corner of his forehead. When he didn’t stir, she stayed close and ran her hand over his hair, still slicked back from court. Carisi, Sonny, and Dominick all had different connotations, and she was thankful to have more time to call him the latter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last part later this week!


	2. Beyond the Courthouse Steps

Detective Rollins and ADA Carisi made the front page of the New York Ledger, but not for their work on the human trafficking case. When Rollins got into the office, she had a small stack of newspapers on her desk brought in by her co-workers. With a coffee in her hand, she picked up the tabloid on top. ADA TARGETED. The cover was a wide shot photograph of the courthouse, in the right corner Carisi and her on the stairs. It was before the ambulance came. Her hands were on his face and his gaze was up and through her. She knew what had just happened.

“Damn vultures,” she hissed, throwing the paper down.

Alex Cabot had to fake her death and be put into witness protection. The truth had to mean he was safe, even if his pain was used to sell newspapers. She also felt exploited.

Rollins was the last person to admit she needed a personal day. She carried on like after leaving the hospital she didn't cry thinking about how she almost lost Sonny. He meant so much to her daughters; to her. They all didn’t need to be taken care of, but he always did so selflessly. Rollins had woken up with a wall of texts from him, one asking if she could pick him up in the afternoon. They had unfinished business, and he knew it would be the only way she’d slow down.

On her way out of the office early, she folded one of the newspapers under her arm. Her ears had been ringing all day. Her co-workers got quiet when she entered a room. It was bad enough she lived through it once, and there was only one other person who could understand. When she made the return to Carisi’s hospital room, she tossed it in his lap before he could say hello.

“You see this?”

He had been taking a sip of water. Shaking his head, he put the paper cup aside and pulled the newspaper closer with the same arm. “Heard about it.”

Seeing an outside perspective sent a chill up his spine. He remembered being there, his life in the hands of God, and being held by the woman he adored. Rollins stood at the end of his bed with her arms crossed.

“Gina said Mom almost passed out getting the paper this morning. Asked how someone could print a picture so vile of her only son and distribute it across the city for everyone to see,” he chuckled, his fingers glazing over the soft paper.

“I don’t even remember it being taken,” Rollins said, letting her arms swing down as she walked up along the side of the bed.

He rested his head back to look up at her, glancing down to the tabloid in his lap.

“Remember what’cha said?”

Rollins raised her eyebrows and air got caught in her throat. She fought back a smile. “Nope.”

“D’you mean it?”

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Amanda.”

His eyes were sorrowful and sweet, shifting trying to read her, but even so, she couldn’t submit to her feelings. She looked away and tucked a strand of hair that fell in her face behind her ear. Yesterday was different.

“It’s funny being on this side,” Rollins said, changing the conversation, but touching his arm and rubbing the fabric of his hospital gown between her thumb and forefinger. “You’ve always been there for me.”

“Yeah, why'd you think that is?”

She smirked, tilted her head towards him, and batted her eyelashes. Backlit from the window outside, she was so pretty. Rollins took her hand away and brought over the chair to sit with him. The newspaper remained pushed to the side on the bed - a chronicle of everything they had to lose and equally gain.

When it was time for Carisi to be discharged, Rollins left to bring her Jeep to the front of the hospital. His family had brought a change of clothes, but even in the familiar zip-up hoodie, he looked like a broken stranger being pushed in a wheelchair to her passenger door. He winced getting in and Rollins held her breath watching him struggle with the seatbelt. At least he was in better shape than when he arrived.

There was an unspoken agreement that she was taking him to his apartment, but the more she thought about it, the more she wanted him home with her. Amanda made the decision without telling him, and he didn’t think much of it until the route to his neighborhood no longer made sense.

“Draw a new map, Rollins?”

“You shouldn’t be there alone.”

“Liv said it’s safe.”

“Sonny...we didn’t even know you were targeted. I couldn’t protect you on those stairs. You’re not armed anymore. I need to know you’re safe. Jesse and Billie need to know you’re safe. We could have lost you yesterday, so you’re going to stay with me and my daughters so we can sleep tonight, okay?”

Carisi looked over at her, driving with two hands on the top of the steering wheel as she intensely stared straight ahead. It was the first time she let a wall come down about what happened, and in true Rollins fashion, it was more like a floodgate. Truthfully, he was going to ask her to come in when they got to his place, see where it went, but this wasn’t about him.

“Sure, ‘Manda. Thanks.”

He was too tired for a deeper sentiment, it didn't matter, and despite everything that needed to be said, the remainder of their drive was silent. 

Frannie greeted them at the door, but her apartment was otherwise quiet. Rollins passively petted the top of the dog’s head as she entered and let Carisi inside. Her nanny, Sienna, had taken the girls to the park an hour ago. After closing the door behind him, she continued into the room and put her keys on the counter, looking down at the few pieces of mail brought in from earlier.

He’d spent much time in Amanda’s apartment, but could only take a few steps in as the gravity of what happened weighed down on him. He flashed back to being strapped down in the ambulance, thinking about the things he never would have gotten to tell her if God’s will was stronger than the surgeon that saved his life.

“We should have dropped off your prescriptions before we came up,” Rollins said, flipping through a magazine as she leaned against the counter.

He didn’t respond, but after a moment, she heard footsteps approach. She turned a page. “There’s a drugstore a couple of blocks down, we could take Frannie and-”

Rollins was stopped when a hand reached out and touched her elbow. She followed the arm of the hauntingly quiet man up to his face - eyes defeated, dark, and sunken. How often she called him soft, and yet she’d never seen him so close to tears. Carisi gently pulled at her arm, and she straightened up, taking her weight off the counter. He snaked the same arm around her waist, not waiting for her to hold him back as he buried his face into her shoulder.

She froze for a moment, but then quickly brought an arm around him and a hand to the back of his head, trying to mind the wound she couldn’t see. With the returned touch, Carisi squeezed her tighter and readjusted his face to the nook of her neck. She heard the pain in his breath and it felt hot against her skin, but she couldn’t tell if the source was physical or mental. He didn’t sob. He barely made a sound, but she knew.

“It’s okay. You’re okay, Dominick,” she comforted, closing her eyes and resting the side of her face in his hair.

He took a moment to gather himself before picking his head up from underneath hers. “I eva’ tell you how much I like when you call me that?”

“Yeah,” she said with a slight smile, wiping a damp spot off his cheek. “You mentioned it.”

How easily she could have made him forget everything. She thought entirely too long about kissing him, and the front door began to unlock from the outside. It would be a while until they were alone again, but the moment had passed. They were untangled by the time Sienna and the girls entered the apartment. Carisi forced a smile, letting her know he was okay.

“Uncle Sonny!”

Jesse ran into the kitchen and her mother swooped her up, planting the young girl on her hip. Rollins nuzzled the side of her little face.

“Momma said you have a big booboo,” the four-year-old said, pointing to the sling over Carisi’s grey sweatshirt.

“That I do, Jess,” he said, bending at his knees to be eye level with the little girl he loved as his own. “But, I’m okay. Promise.”

“That’s good.”

Carisi smiled genuinely and straightened up as Sienna brought Billie over. He touched the baby’s soft cheek, the final addition of his three blessings. “You girls hungry? What’s your Mom got that I could throw together?”

“Uh, no, Uncle Sonny’s gonna go lie down and Momma’s gonna order something in.”

“Let me cook, ‘Manda.”

“Just rest tonight, okay?” She pleaded, letting her squirming daughter down onto the floor. 

Food was how Carisi was raised to bring comfort, and caring for others brought him ease. He needed it more than she did, but let her be right, realizing for all the times he tried to take care of her, she was trying to do the same for him. Rollins took Billie from Sienna and she arranged for the nanny to make the trip to the pharmacy before letting her go for the day.

After ordering a pizza, Rollins left for the living room, still holding Billie, and gestured for Carisi to come with her. Jesse had gone to play with her dolls in her bedroom. He sat in the middle of the couch as she buckled Billie into a bouncy chair by the window. She joined him to the right, folding a leg underneath her as she lowered on the cushion. It was all a delicate balance, loving each other so deeply, but not being able to talk about it to the point where it was awkward.

“So...how’s your shoulder?”

“Hurts. Sick of the sling already.”

“Yeah, sounds about right,” she chuckled. There was a pause and she took a breath of contemplation before bringing her hands to the top of her blouse. “I had no structural damage, but it still stung like a bitch.”

Amanda had talked about when she got shot in passing, but they’d never had a conversation about it. She unbuttoned her shirt down to the underwire of her bra and pushed the fabric off her left shoulder, revealing the top quadrant of her torso. He’d watched her breastfeed two children, it wasn’t a big deal, but he was taken back by her vulnerability and it made her that much more beautiful.

Carisi shifted his weight on the couch to face her as she touched the rough pink and white scar on the outward side of her shoulder. “I overdid the pills a bit. I didn’t feel anything for weeks.” It was a joke, a confession, and a warning.

“I got hit ‘round...here,” he said, taking her hand and moving her fingertips in towards her collarbone on the same side. He’d have a similar scar, in time. She became uncomfortably aware of her flesh and bones underneath.

Carisi pulled away, but she quickly clutched his hand to hold in both of hers against her sternum. She lowered her head to rest her cheek on top, looking up at him through whips of blonde. The faint pulse of her heartbeat against his knuckles made him smile. It was a quiet mutual understanding, but enough for now.

In a close series of events, Sienna completed the errand and the pizza was delivered. Rollins, her daughters, and Carisi sat around the kitchen table to eat like the little family they always were, before letting the oldest girl pick out a movie to watch. She put Billie in her crib and helped Jesse change into pajamas. He took a cocktail of Vicodin and Penicillin.

On the couch, only illuminated by the television, Jesse sat between her mother and father figure. Carisi became drowsy on account of the pain killers, and by the end of the movie, Rollins was the only one awake. He and Jesse had become one sleeping entity, her little head tucked into his side with her thumb in her mouth. Amanda wasn’t the melting type, but she might as well have been the sugar in a gallon of sweet tea. It felt like a sin pulling her small child away, disturbing the peace he had earned and the comfort he provided.

“Hang tight, Dom, I’ll be back,” she softly said as he stirred. A new connotation.

Rollins left to put her sleeping daughter to bed. It wasn’t incredibly late, but well past her bedtime. On the living room couch, Carisi rubbed his eyes. Amanda had turned off the TV, and the only light that remained came in from the city outside. She tucked Jesse in bed before checking on Billie, and partially closed the door behind her.

Sonny sat hunched over in the dark on his phone, his free elbow resting on his right knee as she entered the room. He locked the device, put it aside on the couch, and straightened his spine. The way she walked over was mystical, a little slow with her arms swaying by her sides. He tilted his chin up to look at her and she touched his jaw as she brought a knee up to the edge of the couch. Slightly above him, she touched her forehead to his, the tips of their noses almost brushing together.

Carefully, so carefully, she swung her other leg over his lap, knees on either side of his hips and both hands touching his blushing face. What he’d give to complete the symmetry, instinctually placing his one hand on the top of her thigh. She allowed herself as close as possible without touching the arm between them, knowing very well he wouldn't say she hurt him. 

In her past, she’d kissed strangers without a second thought. Rollins had every intention and desire in the moment, but she could only hover over his mouth and breathe him in. He courageously closed the gap between them, pressing a single sweet and slow kiss upward on her lips as he moved his hand to her waist. Smart, kind, and funny. She enjoyed his company. He was good with her kids. She was missing.

“What would we have done without you?” She whispered, pulling away slightly.

It felt like a punch in the gut, but it was more meaningful than if she shoved her tongue down his throat. Without him. He'd, unfortunately, thought about it before yesterday.

“If I show you somethin’...you can’t laugh.”

“Now, you know I can’t promise that,” she grinned.

“Alright,” he said, removing his hand from her waist to take his phone back. “Alright. The car accident. Jules Hunter. You remember?"

Realizing they shifted to a serious conversation, she nodded and leaned her body back, taking her hands with her. He scrolled through his phone and when he found the video he was looking for, Carisi held the screen against his chest.

“I’ve looked down the barrel of a gun as a cop, but...I watched that girl die. There was nothin’ I could do, she was gone. Didn’t say goodbye to her family, nothin’...and when I got home all I could think about was you and Jesse if it were me instead.”

“Sonny…”

“And I couldn’t stop thinking about it...Jesse being so young, not rememberin’ me, and you not knowin’ how I...well...here,” he said, holding his phone out to her and shyly avoiding her eyes.

Rollins held the device in front of her horizontally. Her eyes shifted up and down between his face and the video pulled up. She adjusted her grip to press the play button in the middle of the screen.

_Carisi’s chest filled the frame until he backed away and sat on the edge of his bed. His phone was propped up on the dresser, supported by his old Bar review book. He had changed from the checkered button-down that not even the best dry cleaner could fix. None of the blood had been his. He walked away with survivor's guilt and a small cut on his forehead, cleaned up with a bandage by the EMTs. His hands came together._

_“Hey. I...hey, Jesse. It’s your Uncle Sonny.” He paused. “I don’t really...today, I...if you don’t remember me, listen, I’m sorry if I’m eva’ not there. Your mom, she’s something special, and she had you all by herself, so I tried to be there for her. I have a big family, it’s what’cha do, but it’s...more than that. I love ya, Jess, I really do, and I got real scared tonight so I wanted to make sure you knew that in case--”_

Rollins stopped the video. It hit too close to home. If it were anyone else, she would have laughed with discomfort at how touching it was. Call it growth, but it was an inevitability. Rollins picked up her head, put his phone aside, and looked for the eyes in the dark of the good man she didn’t deserve. Her silence made him nervous. Slowly, hand by hand, she held his face.

“I love you,” she softly said.

Once again it took his breath away, even from the safety of eight floors up, sitting on her living room couch with the weight of her body to keep him grounded. The corners of his mouth stretched between her hands.

“So, you remember now, huh?”

She looked away, a little hurt. “I was terrified, Sonny.”

“Hey, I know. I’m sorry,” he hushed. God, he was already messing this up. “I love you, Amanda. Hell...I’m, like, really in love with you.”

Rollins grinned and looked up at him through her eyelashes. He flashed back to every time he almost told her, and he could have sat there for a while, but she leaned forward to sink deeper into his lap and kissed him for real. Everything they had been through, and all things considered, his luck wasn’t out. It was just the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm so appreciative of all of the support on here/tumblr and aksjdas ily


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